Sunday, December 30, 2012

Discriminations are
usually resented, but positive discrimination is an acceptable practice
throughout the world for upliftment of the downtrodden. The wonderful idea of
constitutionally provided reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in India was one
such noble idea that has failed to deliver. Though meant for a definite period
in order to allow time for the discriminated people to make up their lost time,
the result of ‘eternal’ reservations is becoming one of replacing temporary
crutches by permanent ones for the physically disabled. Instead of struggling
to get over the historical disadvantages, many among the target crowd are
getting cozy with the incentives and wish to be disadvantaged forever.
Reservations in India
are becoming counter productive in every sense. As usual, politicians belonging
to the uneducated but cunning variety, are spoiling the whole system for their
own selfish ‘votebank’ politics.

There have been
aberrations in the unique caste system of India and many sections of Indian
society have remained disadvantaged for generations as a consequence. The
brilliantly designed Indian caste system literally became a curse when its
intended horizontal structure was titled by vested interests into a vertical
one with the ‘superior’ castes on top. Those who toil for good of the society
became the lower castes and those who do not toil at all became their
superiors. Hereditary lineage was the final nail in the caste coffin and those
in the so-called lower castes became toilers forever even if some of them were
much more brilliant than the upper castes. Successive generations belonging to such
an unnatural setup ended up as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Indian
constitution.

Positive
Discrimination

In the beginning, reservation
in the fields of education and jobs was meant for providing a certain amount of
positive discrimination in favour of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, which
were listed in the constitution itself. It was also meant only for a definite
period of time. The intensions were highly noble because the discrimination was
in positive manner and none of the deserving from any caste (higher or lower) was
discriminated against. Judgment of our highest court that all forms of
reservations together shall not cross 50% of the total was also a brilliant one
to keep the balance between merit and reservations. Such a balanced system
would have definitely helped in churning our society into a better one.

One of the most
important requirements of any system of positive discrimination is to provide a
mechanism to weed out the beneficiaries in a progressive manner. Families who
have already benefitted from a system of reservations must not continue to
enjoy the same again. If the head of the family has already got the benefit of
reservation, it is unreasonable to give the same benefit again to his children.
He or she can continue to get the benefit of economic reservation, but
definitely not the benefits of caste reservations again and again. If such a
system was implemented in right earnest, we would have already had a just and
merit based society by now. Instead the caste based political parties are still
ruling and ruining our nation.

Economic
Reservations

India had some of the best constitution makers that the
world has ever seen. But all of them missed out the vital need for introducing
economic based reservations immediately after 25 or 50 years of caste based
reservations. If such a provision was there in the original constitution
itself, cantankerous politicians and their political parties that survive only
on the backwardness of their own castes would not have evolved at all. Now we
have a situation when the country cannot be ruled without their support and
their only aim is to perpetuate the caste based reservations forever.

Benefits of an
economic based reservation policy are too well known. It is the best known
method to bring up all those who are poor irrespective of their caste and
religion. After all, the ultimate aim of any nation is to provide facilities
for all its citizens to raise upto their level of individual capability without
any hindrance due to extraneous reasons other than pure merit. Social and
economic aspects must not play any part in the workplace where merit of the individual
must be the only criterion for his employment and promotion. Be it corporations
or government, the best results will come out only if there is meritocracy
built into the system.

Political
expediency is once again playing its worst game in the form of a parliamentary
bill aimed at expanding the realm of reservations to promotions also. Nothing
can be more disastrous than this. Narrow minded caste based political parties
are making such moves for their own survival, but national parties whose aim
must be development of the nation must not fall into such traps even if it is
for retaining power. It is high time for all such national parties to come
together and decide once for all that caste-based reservation will continue
only till 2025 and thereafter there will be reservations only on the basis of
economic status.